Translation from English

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

This Ayza place looks interesting...let us see what is on the internet:

CONCEPT The proprietors of AYZA Wine & Chocolate Bar are committed to providing an impeccable, first-class dining experience through their unique menu, coupled with a selection of over 90 fine wines and champagnes from all over the world. AYZA Wine & Chocolate Bar, offers its patrons the finest food and wine in an elegant, yet comfortable atmosphere, in which to dine, meet friends, or have drinks after work.
AYZA was designed by world-renowned architect Richard Bloch. Some of his design credits include Le Bernardin, Masa and Sony Club. AYZA's decor is a contemporary, modern theme with sleek clean lines and has indoor and outdoor seating available.

Yet another big old hotel is being renovated...this one more or less in Garment District, the Affinia.

Let me see what I can find on the internet--

UPDATE: We are happy to report that Affinia Manhattan has weathered Hurricane Irene without incident or loss of power, and the storm continues to clear the area.

Manhattan just got more comfy.

According to Travel & Leisure, “A stay at the Affinia Manhattan will really make you feel a part of the city!”

Get comfy in one of our 616 new guest rooms, redesigned for maximum comfort by the world-renowned design firm, Rockwell Group!
Kick back and relax. The comforts of technology await, including flat-screen TVs, iPod docking stations and wireless Internet. Then choose from our Six-Choice Pillow Menu, and doze off on one of our signature Affinia beds.

Hungry? Studios and suites all have kitchens. Or, pop down to the hotel’s restaurant, Niles New York City Restaurant & Bar, for contemporary American cuisine, stylish décor and a very lively atmosphere. (Note: When there’s a game at the Garden, there’s a gang at Niles.)

Or walk outside, New York City is at your fingertips. Just steps from Penn Station and most subway lines, it’s easy to explore the city’s most exciting neighborhoods and attractions; Madison Square Garden, the Empire State Building, Fifth Avenue shopping, Chelsea art galleries, Broadway, and Times Square — Affinia Manhattan

And for larger groups, we have more than 9,000 sq. ft of meeting space and great catering options to accommodate any event!

Considered the world's most established gem and mineral gallery, Astro Gallery of Gems is located in the heart of New York City across from The Empire State Building. Our 10,000 Square Foot showroom has thousands of minerals, gems, fossils and pieces of rare and unusual jewelry on display.

We carry specimens suitable for the novice as well as the most advanced collector. We have everything from tumbled stones to 2000lb amethyst geodes.

Earth’s jewels from Astro Gallery of Gems.
By Erika Heet
Robb Report
March 2009 Issue
Occasionally, gem expert Dennis Tanjeloff allows potential buyers to view treasures from his private collection, such as a piece of crystalized gold (above, $120,000), found at California’s Eagle’s Nest, that he says is “the size of a man’s hand,” and garnets on albite (below, $65,000) discovered in Pakistan.
“Mother Nature always surprises me with something unexpected,” says Tanjeloff, the third-generation proprietor of New York’s 10,000-square-foot Astro Gallery of Gems (www.astrogallery.com ), which was founded by his grandfather, Julio, in 1961. At age four, Tanjeloff began traveling the world with his grandfather in search of the rarest and most valuable gems. “Europe, China, Russia, Burma, South America – he brought me everywhere and taught me everything,” Tanjeloff says. Over the years, he has witnessed varying undulations in the market. The mantra that my fellow gem collectors and I have been repeating these days is ‘rocks better than stocks’ – people want tangible assets now.”

Who really decides what teens will think is fashionable? This Levi's store on 34th Street has a couple of windows of back to school gear highlighted...

Was curious to see more of the history of Levi's--how does it differ from the Gap?

Levi's is a brand on own its own, like Wrangler. About the Gap:

Founded as a single store by Donald G. Fisher and wife Doris, The Gap, Inc. has evolved into a major retailcompany with well known brands, including its namesake, Banana Republic, and Old Navy. The firm sells a variety of casual-style and urbane chic clothing to men, women, and children in over 4,250 stores across the United States and in Canada, France, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The Gap flourished through the 1980s and 1990s under the leadership of Millard "Mickey" Drexler but has battled tough times in the early years of the new century. Drexler retired in 2002, and Paul Pressler was named CEO while Fisher remained chairman.
Donald Fisher was not of the generation to whom The Gap owes its popularity. A member of a family that made its home in California for generations, Fisher was 40 years old and a successful realestate developer in 1969 when he took note of a new trend among the city's increasingly disaffected youth. Blue jeans, for years made chiefly by Levi Strauss & Co. for laborers and outdoorsmen, were suddenly becoming a part of the counterculture's standard costume. Durable, cheap, comfortable, and acceptably offbeat, jeans were the perfect uniform for a generation of young people anxious to demonstrate its antipathy to corporate America.
Fisher was said to have conceived of The Gap when he was unable to find the right size of Levi's in a department store in Sacramento, California. He realized that jeans had become more popular than current merchandising outlets could accommodate, and like hamburgers, stereo equipment, and gasoline, they could be sold through a chain of small stores devoted solely to that product. With the help of his wife, Doris, Fisher opened a shop near San Francisco State University in one of his own buildings, offering a combination of records and jeans. Their intention was to attract jeans customers by means of the records, but at first no one noticed the jeans, and Fisher was driven close to bankruptcy. In desperation, he placed ads in local newspapers announcing the sale of "four tons" of jeans at rock-bottom prices, and the clothes were soon gone. To emphasize the youthful ambiance of his new store, Fisher named it The Gap, an allusion to a then hot topic, the Generation Gap.

Mobbed yesterday ( and how!) this Gristede's supermarket on 2nd Avenue is really quiet on Sunday...the whole neighborhood having stocked up in the day or two before.

Some stores and shops were more likely to be open than others today....Rite Aid and some Duane Reade outlets were closed, a CVS was open, small delis were open, places to eat were open, and of course bars were really open!

Saw a lot of small knots of tourists not knowing what to do. Looked like Empire State building observation tower was shut down....here on 34th Street, tourists like these Finns just seem to wander around aimlessly.

After the hurricane had passed, they warned people to stay out of Central Park and other places where waterlogged trees ( this has been the rainiest August on record) might fall. A tourist was killed after a rainstorm before this when a branch fell of a tree in Central Park...

Some people might look at this tree downed and say " Ah! Firewood!"--but this is the big city, so the tree becomes part of the park and children play on it, while their parents fool around in it.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

"The Mayor is out scarin' everybody....he's gonna look bad no matter what happens," says the older man with the beer belly and the baseball cap in line next to me at the supermarket. He is finishing off his rant about the preparations for the hurricane.

The woman in front of me has a mixed array of items ( while we are in the fast line so to speak, the store is mobbed like I have never seen it before....incredible number of people in staggeringly long lines).

She is buying a big bag of dog food ("I just realized I had run out this morning") and is upset because there is no bottled water left. All she could find was flavored seltzer.

"So you'll be drinking diet cherry soda," jokes the stocky woman in front of her, --again, another old New Yorker who I doubt remembers 1944 but seems to think the vague sense of panic is not necessary.

As I am writing this now, it is past noon and the subways and buses and all the commuter trains have stopped running. There are intermittent showers but the big rain is not supposed to start until about 4 p.m. this afternoon.

I was forgetful too: I realized yesterday I was not going to be able to find any new batteries for my flashlight...those sold out fast everywhere.

I live in an area that is a block away from what should be an evacuation zone according to what the map on the city's website shows...but I doubt the people who live in those huge high rises near the East River are going anywhere. Wonder how many of them who live above the tenth floor will try to be finding lower places because of the Mayor's statement that their windows are going to get blown in (maybe).

Like a lot of other people, I will be following the hurricane's progress all evening.

It is sort of spooky to realize the worst winds and rain will arrive at about 3 a.m. Sunday and last into early Sunday afternoon. That is when I expect the ground floor/basement area of my building may flood, despite the sandbags they have on hand.

The elevator in my building has already been shut down to keep it from getting damaged if there is flooding....

One of the most annoying aspects of this is that big electric generating plants near here are right on the East River and potentially in flood areas.

So if power goes out (which is not all that common in Midtown Manhattan...maybe once or twice a year, mostly from all the air conditioners during heat waves)--it could be quite a while until it is on again.

So, again, there is all this speculation because of the strict warnings that they have been issuing and we just have to hope for the best...and prepare for the worst.

My neighbor asked me to take this photo of the rear courtyard of our building.

He is upset because he thinks that the unsecured objects will get tossed around all over the place and maybe into the building ( or through someone's window) when those 95 mph wind gust arrive here tomorrow morning early.

He is also talking about tornadoes and all sorts of havoc...

He may be right but I hope he is not. The management did take the bigger lawn furniture out of the rear yard but the potted shrubs and trees will probably get knocked over, that seems like a fairly safe bet. Or is it?

That is the thing: no one has experienced a storm like this since 1944 it seems ( before I was born, that shows you how long ago that is!)-- and while hurricanes have brushed past the city since then, this is an unusually large one with a huge windfield --what is it, 300 miles wide?-- and a lot depends where you are in relation to the eye of the storm.

The flooding from the storm surge may do more damage than anyone now really believes...again, let us hope not.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

I cannot say enough good words about Fountain House, the wonderful Manhattan clubhouse for people with emtional and some physical challenges.

I was able to learn computers through Fountain House, and get a scholarship for an Associate's Degree in Advertising Illustration and Design through the Education Unit, of which I just updated my membership....

From the internet:

Fountain House is a professional self-help program located in New York city, operated by men and women recovering from major mental illness in collaboration with a professional staff (must have a four degree in any major). The Fountain House uses the Clubhouse Model of Psychosocial Rehabilitation - it was, in fact, the first such program, first established in New York City in 1948. Mr. John Beard was the director that had redical experience with people with mental illness able to work and work for pay.There are now around 400 Clubhouses internationally. The emphasis at Fountain House is on relationships – member to member, and member to staff. At a clubhouse the Members engage with each other to regain their productivity and self-confidence, resume their lives, and re-enter society. The clubhouse environment also allows its members to learn self-advocacy, and fight the stigma that often separates them from their neighbors. Fountain House's programs and partnerships originate in its units: education, employment, research, clerical, culinary, wellness, etc. Each unit is "home base" for a number of members and staff, who work together to develop and operate a particular activity. In each unit, as well, staff members provide community support for members, to ensure that they receive the benefits and services they need, from both Fountain House and beyond. In 2005, Fountain House was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.

THEABOVE is a rather dry description of this beautiful place....an internet link is at

Worldwide Plaza, on 49th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues, is an interesting complex that combines an office tower (Post Modern) and upscale apartments.

Internet says:

One Worldwide Plaza is part of a three-building, mixed-use commercial and residential complex completed in 1989, in the New York Cityborough of Manhattan, known collectively as Worldwide Plaza. One Worldwide Plaza is a commercial office tower on Eighth Avenue. Two Worldwide Plaza is a residential condominium tower west of the center of the block, and Three Worldwide Plaza is a low-rise condominium residential building with street level stores on Ninth Avenue, to the west of the towers. The complex occupies an entire city block, bounded by Eighth Avenue, Ninth Avenue, 49th Street, and 50th Street. Located on the west side of Eighth Avenue, One Worldwide Plaza is built on the site of New York City's third Madison Square Garden. The 50th Street subway station is underneath.

Public plaza with the fountain in the foreground and Two and Three Worldwide Plaza in the background; view from the southeast

Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the Worldwide Plaza complex was developed by William Zeckendorf, Jr. The building of One Worldwide Plaza was documented in a Channel 4 / PBS mini-series and a companion book Skyscraper: The Making of a Building by Karl Sabbagh (ISBN 978-0140152845).
One Worldwide Plaza is a 49-story, 1.5 million square feet (139,355 m²), 778-foot (237 m) tall office skyscraper. The building has three separate entrances to accommodate the various tenants in the building, which include the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore and, formerly, the international advertising agency of Ogilvy & Mather. The base of the building is made of granite and precast concrete. The tower facade is made of brick. The building is crowned by a copper roof and glass pyramid known as "David's Diamond" after the architect, David Childs.
A mid-block public plaza separates One Worldwide Plaza from the residential buildings of Two Worldwide Plaza and Three Worldwide Plaza. The public plaza is a bonus space granted under New York City Department of City Planning. The creation and maintenance of the public plaza resulted in permission to build additional floors in the office tower. The landscaping of the plaza contains over 40 trees and numerous plantings, and a cafe. Public seating is available year round. The center of the plaza is highlighted by a fountain created by Sidney Simon[4] called "The Four Seasons". Four female statues, each representing a season, hold up a globe.
There is a theater space beneath the public plaza, which was originally a six-screen movie theater but is now occupied by five off-Broadway theaters known as New World Stages. Access is gained by two kiosk buildings: one on 49th Street and the other on 50th Street.
In July, 2009, Deutsche Bank agreed to sell Worldwide Plaza for just $600 million after a previous sale of $1.74bn in February 2007, a 66% drop in value in just 2 years.[5] Developer George Comfort & Sons was the buyer, and the purchase was the biggest after the NYC downturn, which followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Harry B. Macklowe[6] had lost the building to Deutsche in 2008.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Did not get out with camera until some time after tremor here....people who were out awhile after it told me all these people had evacuated from high rises on 34th Street...

Saw more people holding hands than usual. And small groups of what seemed like tourists texting away....

Just heard snippets of conversation....outside one building on 34th Street, some people were still staying out of the building and smoking etc.

According to radio news, some people felt the tremor much more than others. People in upper floors of office buildings felt the most, it seems.

A lot of people said their first sensation was that they were experiencing vertigo...one man though another was shaking his desk...only in a few places in the NY area did people get a real jolt it seems.

The Lincoln and Holland tunnels were closed for about 20 minutes after the tremor...causing big traffic jams of course. Trains out of NYC are running at slow speeds which means commuting home will be a long ride for a lot of people...think some were leaving early this afternoon just on general principles.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Some people just like to sit and look at the view across the East River on a late Sunday afternoon....or sit in one of the two pretty little parks....while the fantasy architecture of Fred French contrasts so much with the austerity of modern buildings around it....

Sunday, August 21, 2011

This was something new to me: I know the City has Cooling Centers during the summer where people can go who either do not have a/c or cannot afford to run it all the time,--but I never saw some place just designated a "Public Space" before. Seems like pretty affluent people hang out there, it is no magnet for homeless people as far as I can tell....(like the public libraries used to be).

See what Internet says...nope. nothing that seems to explain this place.

This is a very big music store on a Midtown street where I think there used to be more of them.

Internet says:

SamAsh.com is part of the more than 84-year-old Sam Ash family of companies, including Sam Ash Musical Instrument Megastores with 46 locations in 16 states from coast to coast!

Information about Sam Ash Music Retail Stores:

Professional musicians, music students, and hobbyists worldwide are familiar with the Sam Ash name from its stores in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Nevada, Illinois, Arizona, California, Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, and Georgia. For more information about Sam Ash Retail Stores, go to their website at www.samashmusic.com for a complete listing with maps and directions to their stores, phone numbers, lists of special events, and other information about a Sam Ash Musical Instrument Megastore near you.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Endless bikeathon on Park Avenue ( I don't know for what purpose) is joined by woman with baby in stroller of all things.

Seems hardly a week goes by in the summer and fall without a walk or a run or something dedicated to some charitable cause.

Internet suggests this is just for fun:

Summer Streets 2011
NYC DOT and its partners are proud to present Summer Streets. This summer, for the fourth year in a row, Summer Streets will temporarily close Park Avenue and connecting streets from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park to motor vehicles and open it up to people on three consecutive Saturdays in August (August 6, 13, & 20).Learn more about activities and eventsRoute Map

DOT also partners with groups citywide to bring some summer streets fun to neighborhoods in all five boroughs. Find a Weekend Walk near you.

Manhattan's famed block on 47th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues is the Diamond Center....almost all closed on a Saturday except for a shop or two I saw that seemed to be owned by Asians.

Wikipedia says:

The district was created when dealers moved north from an earlier district near Canal Street and the Bowery that was created in the 1920s, and from a second district located in the Financial District, near the intersection of Fulton and Nassau Streets, which started in 1931. The move uptown started in 1941. The district grew in importance when the German Nazis invaded the Netherlands and Belgium, forcing thousands of Orthodox Jews in the diamond business to flee Antwerp and Amsterdam and settle in New York City. Most of them remained after World War II, and remain a dominant influence in the Diamond District.[1]
A notable, long-time anomaly of the district was the famous Gotham Book Mart, a bookstore, which was located at 41 West 47th Street from 1946 to 2004.
The area is one of the primary centers of the global diamond industry (along with London - rough stones; the Antwerp diamond district in Belgium - historical but waning; Mumbai, India - increasing in significance, Ramat Gan, Israel - also growing, and Johannesburg, South Africa - the major historical source), as well as the premier center for jewelry shopping in the city. An estimated 90% of diamonds in the United States enter through New York.

Operation

It has been reported[2] that total receipts for the value of a single day's trade on the block average $400 million. There are 2,600 independent businesses located in the district, nearly all of them dealing in diamonds or jewelry. Most are located in booths at one of the 25 "exchanges" in the district. Many deals are finalized by a simple, traditional blessing (mazel und brucha[1]) and handshake. The Diamond Dealers Club — also known as the DDC — is an exclusive club that acts as a de facto diamond exchange and has its own synagogue. Retailers with shops line the streets outside. Above the bazaar is the Gemological Institute of America which trains gem dealers.

Bas reliefs of significant Midtown Buildings around Peter Kalikow building near Grand Central.

Kalikow has done a lot in NYC and has also drawn severe criticism.

From the internet:

Underground Man

Real-estate tycoon Peter Kalikow is rewriting his legacy by presiding over the biggest expansion of New York’s transit system in 60 years. And the Second Avenue subway is only part of the MTA chairman’s plan.

Riding uptown in his chauffeur-driven Lincoln one recent snowy morning, MTA chairman Peter Kalikow was worried about his switches. All through this unusually frigid winter, the cold has caused Metro-North and Long Island railroad switches to freeze, playing havoc with train schedules and Kalikow’s peace of mind.
“You cannot believe what the weather does to our system,” he says, shaking his head in frustration. “All the maintenance, all the track work, all the attention to detail goes out the goddamned window because of the cold. Unbelievable.”

Related StoryThe Line that Time Forgot
By Greg Sargent
They call the Second Avenue subway the greatest New York project never built. They may have to think of a new name. (April 5, 2004 issue of New York Magazine)

It seems an odd thing to have to fret about for someone at Kalikow’s point in life. Rather than sit on a few corporate boards and attend fund-raisers, the man who spent three decades building high-rise towers, once owned the New York Post, and was the financial architect of Alfonse D’Amato’s Senate career is consumed with the grinding task of overseeing a public-transportation network that employs 65,000 people and serves 8 million riders a day (3 billion a year). It is a job in which he gets blamed for every closed token booth, dirty subway car, and broken escalator.
People often ask him why he subjects himself to the rigors of the chairmanship when he could be doing just about anything else. “I had no idea what I was getting into,” he sometimes smiles and says.
But the truth is more complicated. After surviving a painful, highly public bankruptcy in the early nineties, Kalikow was determined to give something back. The impulse is part altruism, part effort to erase the blot on his record through achievement.
Kalikow likes to say he doesn’t want anything from the job (“What could I want? I have everything”), but, of course, that’s not entirely true. Making money is no longer paramount. “I do this,” he says, “because I want my legacy to be something other than money.”
Though Kalikow has already changed the MTA in significant ways—he’s instituted management reforms to ensure increased accountability and efficiency, and put more transparency in the budget process—he has staked his legacy on expansion. The MTA is about to begin the largest, most far-reaching construction of public-transportation facilities in the city in more than 60 years. It is the kind of infrastructure-building program that will dramatically affect life in New York for decades.
Kalikow believes his experience as a developer has uniquely prepared him for this challenge. He knows how to manage megaprojects (“I’ve been known to have the ability to make sure people do what they’re supposed to when I want something done”) and has the vision to see and understand what the construction will mean to New York 30 or 40 years from now. “They left us a system that’s gone 60 years without expansion,” he says. “And in truth, we weren’t ready to expand. We didn’t really know how to run a system. Now we’ve proved we can do it, and that’s why we can ask for the money. It’s time.”
First up is what’s referred to as East Side Access. At a cost of $6.3 billion, this project will enable Long Island Rail Road trains to go directly into Grand Central Terminal. Right now, 40 percent of all LIRR riders are forced to backtrack to get to the East Side once they reach Penn Station. In addition to saving commuter time and energy, East Side Access would ease the burden on buses, subways, and taxis.

The Flower District (shown here on 28th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues) seems to contract in size every year.

This is its prime season, however....

Let me see what I can google:(This from NY Times article):

Manhattan’s century-old flower district occupies little more than a block of West 28th Street, between Avenue of the Americas and Seventh Avenue, whittled down over the years by soaring real estate prices and condominium encroachment. Yet what a block it is: a startlingly verdant oasis that can be explored in less than half a day. Plants, branches, vases and garden accoutrements crowd its sidewalks, and usually cost less than what florists and other vendors charge. Much of the business is wholesale, but many shops now welcome walk-in customers, too. “These days,” one vendor said, “we’ll take anything.”

About Me

New Trier High School, Winnetka Illinois.... cancer survivor...NYU Grad School of Film and TV...Film Editor....Training Audio/Visual Writer for US Coast Guard...audio visual producer and public relations writer..had some pretty awful bumps along the way (haven't we all) --glad to still be around and in touch with so many friends from the past